Storage device with hardware accelerator

Abstract

A storage device includes a storage controller, a Flash Memory and a hardware accelerator communicatively coupled. The hardware accelerator is configured to selectively retrieve data stored in the flash memory in response to a request for the data and may perform other operation to accelerate data access for a computer system.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A storage device, comprising;
 a storage controller;   a flash memory communicatively coupled to the storage controller; and   a hardware accelerator communicatively coupled to the flash memory and the storage controller wherein the hardware accelerator is configured to:
 generate, after receiving data, a token representing the data and indicating a level of detail of the data; 
 store the data in the flash memory at an indexed position based on the token; and 
 selectively retrieve the data stored in the flash memory in response to a request for the data and based on the token. 
   
     
     
         2 . The storage device of  claim 1 , wherein the storage controller, the flash memory, and the hardware accelerator are located on a same circuit board. 
     
     
         3 . The storage device of  claim 1 , further comprising a physical interface communicatively coupled to the storage controller and the hardware accelerator. 
     
     
         4 . The storage device of  claim 3 , wherein the physical interface is an M.2 connector. 
     
     
         5 . The storage device of  claim 3 , wherein the physical interface is a Universal Serial Bus connector. 
     
     
         6 . The storage device of  claim 3 , wherein the request for the data is received from a computer system communicatively coupled to the storage device through the physical interface. 
     
     
         7 . The storage device of  claim 3 , wherein the request for the data is received by the storage controller and the storage controller communicates the request to the hardware accelerator. 
     
     
         8 . The storage device of  claim 1 , wherein the hardware accelerator is a graphics processing unit accelerator and wherein the data are textures, wherein the graphics processing unit accelerator is configured to retrieve the data using with an index, wherein the textures are stored in the flash memory indexed by the token. 
     
     
         9 . The storage device of  claim 8 , wherein the graphics processing unit accelerator further includes at least one of a hardware video decoder module and a hardware video encoder module. 
     
     
         10 . The storage device of  claim 8 , wherein the graphics processing unit accelerator further includes a hardware graphics processing pipeline stage. 
     
     
         11 . The storage device of  claim 1 , wherein the hardware accelerator is a field programmable gate array. 
     
     
         12 . The storage device of  claim 1 , wherein the storage controller is an NVME controller or a USB controller. 
     
     
         13 . The storage device of  claim 1 , wherein the hardware accelerator is further configured to store the data in the flash memory using an index in response to a storage request for the data. 
     
     
         14 . The storage device of  claim 13 , wherein the hardware accelerator is further configured to generate an index entry in the flash memory for the data stored in the flash memory. 
     
     
         15 . The storage device of  claim 1 , wherein the hardware accelerator selectively retrieves data stored in the flash memory using an index based on a file type of the data. 
     
     
         16 . The storage device of  claim 1 , wherein the hardware accelerator is further configured to compress the data. 
     
     
         17 . The storage device of  claim 1 , wherein the hardware accelerator is communicatively coupled to a second hardware accelerator over a network through at least a first computer system. 
     
     
         18 . The storage device of  claim 17 , wherein the hardware accelerator is further configured to send the data to the second hardware accelerator over the network. 
     
     
         19 . A storage device, comprising;
 a storage controller;   a flash memory communicatively coupled to the storage controller; and   a hardware accelerator communicatively coupled to the flash memory and the storage controller wherein the hardware accelerator is configured to:
 generate, after receiving data, a token representing the data; 
 compress the data; 
 store the data in the flash memory at an indexed position based on the token; and 
 selectively retrieve the data stored in the flash memory in response to a request for the data and based on the token. 
   
     
     
         20 . A storage device, comprising;
 a storage controller;   a flash memory communicatively coupled to the storage controller; and   a hardware accelerator communicatively coupled to the flash memory and the storage controller wherein the hardware accelerator is configured to:
 generate, after receiving data, a token representing the data; 
 store the data in the flash memory at an indexed position based on the token, wherein the data is represented using a vector oriented data format; 
 perform a search through the data in the vector oriented data format; and 
 selectively retrieve the data stored in the flash memory in response to a request for the data and based on the token.